Description

The essays provide insight into the cultural creativity, reinterpretation of worship and religious ingenuity of city people over the last 50 years." —Library Journal

At last, a major dissection of the great mystery in modern Americanlife—how religion and spirituality prospered amidst industrialization,urbanization, and rampant technological change after 1880!" —Jon Butler, Yale University

Urban religion" strikes many as an oxymoron. How can religion thrive in the alienated, secular, fast-paced, and materialistic world of the modern, Western city? The authors in this collection believe that cities not only can provide the settings for religious expression, but also are material to the experiences which give rise to those religious expressions. In this book, they explore the distinctly urban forms of religious experience and practice that have developed in relation to the spaces, social conditions, and history of American cities.

Author Bio

Robert A. Orsi is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University and author of The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 and Thank You, St. Jude: Women’s Devotions to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. He has taught at Fordham University at Lincoln Center and at the Universita degli Studi di Roma and has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Orsi’s books have been awarded the Alpha Sigma Nu National Book Prize of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (1985); the American Catholic Historical Association’s John Gilmary Shea Prize (1986); and the Merle Curti Award in American Social History from the Organization of American Historians (1998).

Customer Reviews

Table of Contents

Introduction: Crossing the City Line Robert A. Orsi1. Libations on Linoleum: Ecological Dissonance and Vodou Ritual Improvisations between New York and Haiti Karen McCarthy Brown2. The Hindu Gods in a Split-Level World: The Sri Siva-Vishnu Temple in Suburban Washington, DC Joanne Punzo Waghorne3. Diaspora Nationalism and Urban Landscape: Cuban Immigrants at a Catholic Shrine in Miami Thomas A. Tweed4. Altared Spaces: Afro-Cuban Religions and the Urban Landscape in Cuba and the United States David H. Brown5. Moses of the South Bronx: Aging and Dying in the Old Neighborhood Jack Kugelmass6. The Religious Boundaries of an In between People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem, 1920-1990 Robert A. Orsi7. Heritage, Ritual, and Translation: Seattle’s Japanese Presbyterian Church Madeline Duntley8. "We Go Where the Italians Live": Religious Processions as Ethnic and Territorial Markers in a Multiethnic Brooklyn Neighborhood Joseph Sciorra9. The Stations of the Cross: Christ, Politics, and Processions in New York City’s Lower East Side Wayne Ashley10. "The Cathedral of the Open-Air": The Salvationist Army’s Sacralization of Secular Space, New York City, 1880-1910 Diane Winston